Melanoma Drug STA-4783

From Medical News Today-

An experimental drug that attacks cancer in an entirely new way has shown promise in treating advanced melanoma, delaying progression of the disease and prolonging the lives of patients.

New research presented at the European Cancer Conference (ECCO 14) in Barcelona found that giving the new drug in addition to chemotherapy more than doubled the amount of time patients survived without progression of their cancer.

The study, according to Dr. Anthony Williams, vice president of clinical research at Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp. in Lexington, Massachusetts, USA, included 81 patients with metastatic melanoma. Of those, 28 received treatment with the chemotherapy drug paclitaxel alone and 53 received paclitaxel plus the new drug, STA-4783.

"The median progression free survival was 1.8 months in the group who got chemotherapy alone, but 3.7 months in the group who got the combination," Williams said. "This doubling in progression free survival is impressive for this cancer, and the result was achieved without substantial additional toxicity."

The doubling of survival rates for Stage IV melanoma(Median survival is like 10 months), may not seem signifigant, unless you or a loved one have the disease. Advanced melanoma, particularly brain metastasis, is a death sentence. God bless the Melanoma warriors.

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